With nearly 20 years’ experience as a registered nurse, including 13 years working in NICU, Alaina Hunter has dedicated much of her career to supporting babies and their families. Becoming a mother herself, and later qualifying as an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, deepened her passion for helping parents navigate the challenges of feeding, sleep and early parenthood. Through her private practice with The Mama Coach, she now brings evidence-based, personalised support directly to families in Dunedin, offering the time, reassurance and professional guidance that can be difficult to find amongst the overwhelming amount of parenting information online. Here, she talks to The Natural Parent Magazine about stepping outside her comfort zone to build her own business, balancing private practice with hospital work and family life, and her plans to expand her support into workshops and fertility care.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
I’m a registered nurse and lactation consultant with nearly 20 years working in the public health system, primarily in the NICU. I had my first baby seven years ago and my second three years ago. During the time between babies, I really noticed how much parenting advice online had exploded, just in those few years. As a new mum, I found that both a blessing and a curse – there’s so much good information, but in those 2 am doom-scrolling moments, it’s easy to feel anxious and lost. I also found that all that information dampened my own instincts as a mother.
I wanted to offer something different: evidence-based, balanced guidance that’s easy to access and helps parents feel confident making choices that fit their family. That’s why I started my private practice – to bring real, professional support into Dunedin living rooms, from a real person, not just another feed or ChatGPT. I also really wanted to make the support that is available to mums in the NICU or hospital setting around feeding available to all mums and on an ongoing basis.
The launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
For the last 13 years, I have worked in the NICU (I still do and I love it!), and it was there that my love for supporting families grew. Between having my own babies, I completed my study to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) because breastfeeding had been such a meaningful part of my own motherhood journey. I wanted other mums to feel that same joy and to have someone beside them through what can be a beautiful but challenging milestone.
Even with the qualification, I wasn’t sure how to start a private practice. As a registered nurse (RN), the idea of setting out on my own felt big and a little daunting. That’s when I found The Mama Coach – a global group of RNs focused on women’s healthcare, from antenatal care right through to perimenopause. After a chat with Carrie, the founder, everything clicked and the maternal/child division felt like the right place to start. With my background in NICU and lactation, it felt like the perfect place to start, offering education and support around feeding, sleep, newborns and postpartum right up to toilet training.
The Mama Coach offered the training and business education I needed, and I felt instantly supported.
Being able to work with mums and babies outside the hospital has been incredibly rewarding – and I feel privileged to be part of this brand.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
If I’m honest, I don’t think the biggest breakthrough has happened yet – and that feels exciting. Every step I take teaches me something new about running a business, building relationships with families and showing up as the clinician I want to be. I hope the biggest breakthrough is still ahead, and I’m working towards it every day.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
Work-life balance is something I’m still figuring out! For years, work for me meant a 12-hour shift at the hospital where I could focus completely on the task at hand – and then leave work at the door when I went home.
Running my own business has a very different rhythm. It needs more planning, clearer boundaries and a conscious effort to protect family time. It’s tempting to grab a minute at home to answer an email or check something on my laptop, but I’ve learned that those small choices add up. Setting limits helps me be present with my family and do better work for my clients when I’m working.
I still work in the hospital as well, so juggling all the roles has been a challenge for sure!
The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
Stepping out of my comfort zone has been the biggest challenge.
In the public health system, there’s a safety net: policies, teams and the organisation behind you. As a private practitioner, it’s just me. That can feel scary, but it’s also exactly what I needed.
The journey has pushed me to learn about business, marketing and entrepreneurship, and it’s taught me a lot about myself. I still feel like I’m at the beginning, but I’m trying to just fail forward and make small efforts every day.
Needing to have a social media presence has been a big adjustment and something that I find challenging. I never aspired to be an influencer at all, but in 2026, if you’re not on social media, you are missing out on a huge demographic. Everyone gets their information from social media these days. I’m not the most technologically gifted person, so there has been a lot to learn!
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
When I started, my main goal was to create a more flexible working life – to reduce shift work and have more control over my schedule. I think anyone who runs their own business can relate to the fact that it certainly doesn’t happen overnight. Working from anywhere is wonderful, yet it requires discipline and strong boundaries at home so work doesn’t creep into every free minute. My hope is that, over time, the flexibility I dreamed of will become the reality I’ve been building towards.
But at the core of my passion and my business is working with my clients one on one. In private practice, I am able to spend more time with people, really hearing about their struggles and challenges. It allows me to provide the space for them to feel seen and heard, and my hope is that they feel someone is in their corner, helping them figure out the next steps. Women deserve care and compassion and to feel like their voice matters. That is my biggest pro.
Hopes and dreams: What’s next?
As well as providing in-home and virtual consultations for feeding and sleep support, I am about to start running regular workshops in Dunedin for the wonderful mums in my community. These sessions are a great way for mums to build community while getting practical education and support. I’ll be starting with antenatal breastfeeding education, toddler sleep, toilet learning and CPR.
I will also be launching the fertility branch of my practice by the end of the year, which is particularly close to my heart. The WHO reports that 1 in 6 adults worldwide experiences infertility in their lifetime. Fertility treatments are expensive and can have huge waitlists for publicly funded interventions.
There is so much that can be done to mitigate problems by setting yourself up with the best preconception planning. I am excited to be working with couples and individuals to realise their dreams of having a family by teaching preconception health and ways to optimise the chances of pregnancy, as well as practical help with fertility injections and compassionate, evidence-based care during assisted fertility processes.
I know first-hand the pain, isolation and guilt infertility can bring – I’ve lived it. That personal experience informs the way I listen, support and advocate for my clients. Combined with evidence-informed clinical care, I offer practical guidance and emotional understanding for the physical and mental challenges individuals and couples face when trying to conceive. That blend of knowledge and compassion is at the heart of everything I do.
I would love to start doing some work towards getting IBCLCs funded through some private health insurers. I have absolutely no idea where I would begin with that, but I’m getting used to stepping outside my comfort zone, and you never know if you don’t try!
To find out more, you can contact Alaina at alaina.hunter@themamacoach.com. You can also connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.
